``Twenty years into the epidemic, it is alarming that AIDS is expanding three times faster than the funding to control it,'' Dr Peter Piot, executive director of the United Nations programme UNAIDS, said in a statement yesterday.

``Weighed against the global catastrophe of the AIDS epidemic, the level of spending for HIV prevention around the world is minimal.''

Between 1990 and 1997, the number of people infected with the virus that causes AIDS tripled from 9.8 million to 30.3 million, the study found. During that time, funding for HIV and AIDS prevention grew from $165 million to $273 million.

In 1999, 47 million people are estimated to have HIV -- nearly five times as many as in 1990 -- but the $350 million spent to control it is only slightly more than double the 1990 funding level.

``Donor nations mustrealise that their substantial investments towards improving conditions in developing nations will be effectively obliterated unless more is invested in fighting AIDS -- the single greatest threat to global development today,'' Piot said.